HOW TO REVIVE A VILLAGE? The other day, an article by the famous journalist Dmitry Steshin appeared in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, dedicated to the problem of the gradual disappearance of Russian villages. The problem is common to all of Central Russia, and does not concern only the Tver region, where a Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondent visited, deeply affected by this topic. The ranking of dead villages, compiled based on the results of the population census, can be found on the Internet by anyone. Judging by the published data, in Russia today there are 20 thousand villages in which there is not a single inhabitant left, and another 36 thousand where only one person lives... WE NEED TO GIVE PEOPLE LANDS AS ESTATES. His comment on this topic, in particular, was given by the Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov), Metropolitan of Pskov and Porkhov: – At one time I had a farm in the Ryazan region, and people returned to the village and received decent salaries. But I have another job - swinging a censer, and for twenty years I rushed around these fields, collecting alcoholics and bringing them to their senses. But in the Non-Black Earth Region... A tragedy occurred when these regions were declared unpromising, and they began to invest money in virgin lands. Although you should invest in them. And not only in agriculture - it was necessary to raise large production. I fought like crazy to get 25 centners per hectare, then - 45, now - 47... I come to the Krasnodar Territory, and they have 80 centners! And the cost of grain is absolutely ridiculous - compared to the Ryazan region. And they tell me: Krasnodar region, Stavropol region, Volga region and Altai will not only feed the whole country - there will be surpluses. I now see the only way out is to connect roads, gas, and electricity to the beautiful lakes. And give these lands away as estates ordinary people. How much do you need - 10 hectares? And here’s a non-refundable subsidy for your house. There is no need to suffer with commercial agricultural production. Just live, keep the beds, goats, rabbits! A small farm on a family estate, a guest house... I told the president this too - give the land to the landowners for safekeeping! In the same Pskov region they lived traditionally - on farmsteads. THE EXODUS FROM THE CITIES WILL INCREASE The readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda did not remain indifferent to this publication. They left hundreds of responses and letters under the article on the website and sent hundreds of responses and letters to the editor. Here are fragments of some of them. – Here, they say, in the Russian Federation, agriculture north of the 55th parallel (Ryazan) is unprofitable. They say that it will remain only in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Belgorod and Voronezh regions, in Altai. But this is not true! A range of crops in middle lane grows better. This is flax, rye, almost all vegetables plus various herbs (mowing up to three times during the summer season), milk is not as fatty as southern milk, but only from it excellent Vologda oil is obtained... And this is like beluga among fish! And these products are much tastier than those from the south. Even southerners admit it! Moreover, all of them can be passed as “eco”, which means that at least they can and should be given to children. – I think that the extinction of villages will continue. But it is not all that bad. A thin trickle of immigrants is already oozing out of the swelling megacities, settling in abandoned villages. I think the exodus from the cities will increase. So all is not lost yet. – 150 years ago – this is the middle of the 19th century. At this time, there was a rapid growth of the population of Russia and, above all, the rural population. To this day, in the villages there are houses built at that time, including stone ones. The buildings of zemstvo hospitals with carved platbands, iron roof and bronze door handles! After the Great Patriotic War the village also recovered quickly: from 1945 to 1955 the population grew by 28 million people! The Russian countryside began to degrade under Khrushchev, when the peasants were taken away from their personal plots, crushed with taxes, and collective farms were forced to buy back old equipment from MTS at inflated prices, and new ones were sent to virgin lands. That's when the people fled from the village. Brezhnev also made his contribution to the state of affairs in the countryside: it was under him that Central Russia became an “unpromising Non-Black Earth Region.” That's it now national republics , especially in the North Caucasus, receive increased subsidies. Invest a small fraction of this money in a Russian village, and it will pay off a hundredfold! – The only way out, as Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) says, is to distribute the land. There are a lot of willing people, the same Muscovites and summer residents. He himself has a house in the Tver region. Summer residents arrive, and jobs appear for the locals (those who don’t drink, of course). I would take several hectares in addition to my 40 acres. I’m unlikely to grow anything myself, but I won’t let the land become overgrown with weeds, which is also not bad. WE CAN'T DO WITHOUT THE FEDERAL PROGRAM Our newspaper also decided to join the discussion of the problem, since it concerns everyone, including residents of the Rzhevsky district. By the way, our region also appears in the Komsomolskaya Pravda article - however, as a positive example. However, this does not alleviate the acute problem of villages disappearing from the map of rural areas. The Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist raised a very large and complex problem in this conversation about the Russian village. This is not about whether it is worth developing agriculture. Everything is clear and understandable here - you need to invest money, issue targeted subsidies, preferential loans, etc. By and large, the conversation is about what our country will be like in the near and more distant future. For example, Alexey Kudrin, one of the leaders of public opinion in Russia, who was the Minister of Finance and even Deputy Prime Minister for many years, believes that the entire country should turn into several agglomerations. People there will be provided with employment and cultural recreation, but the fact that they will communicate with nature when going somewhere to Turkey or Thailand is normal. It’s clear that this man doesn’t know or understand the Russian village, and he doesn’t need it for nothing. Moreover, he does not understand the Russian soul, as they say now, the Russian mentality, but this, in the end, is his problem. A much more important issue than the ideas of a single official is the main path of development of Russia. Is it connected with the rise of the Russian village, or is its fate to remain on the sidelines and eventually disappear completely? But then the Russian code may disappear along with it - what makes us a special people, with our own customs, traditions, and views. In megacities, maintaining one’s uniqueness is extremely difficult, if not impossible - they unify everything and everyone, “brushing” them with the same brush. I don’t really want to become a neuter person. This means we need a Russian village. But then the question arises: what should it be? While discussing this topic, we will not talk about the Oleninsky district, where the Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondent visited - it would not be entirely correct. But, for example, the Rzhev village of Zvyagino, which for a long time did not live, but survived. Now a pig farm is being built next to it, and the residents don’t know whether to be happy or sad about it. They don’t trust the authorities, they are afraid of environmental damage; There are also enough people who have simply forgotten how to work and do not want to work. In the neighboring village of Zaitsevo, there was also disintegration for many years and nothing was created. But now there are active, energetic people who want to breathe new life to a village that was once the center of a large estate. True, they turned out to be outsiders. Even so, the village suddenly felt the pulse of life, and its inhabitants had hope. The hope is that with the help of tourism, the mossy stone of a stagnant atmosphere can be moved, and then something that has not been there for many years will appear - prospects for a better life. Or the Kolembets, who are discussed in the newspaper article, the owners and creators of the guest complex “Chertolino Estate” - who are they trying for? For myself? Yes, probably. But they can give jobs to ten, and in the future, many more people. Not to mention the fact that their labors and efforts improve not only the natural landscape, but also human relationships. By their example, they show that it is possible to live differently - more beautiful, more honest, more noble. All of these are islands of new life, it’s a pity that they are just islands. And we need a whole continent called “The Revival of the Russian Village.” And here we cannot do without a federal target program, because no local authorities can solve this immense problem alone - even if they are smart. The creation of such a program should start from the bottom, when the regions themselves would determine where it is more promising to engage in agricultural production, where to place processing and storage of products, and where to focus on the development of tourism. Then it will be possible to combine all these areas and create a single federal target program. Regarding the distribution of land, there is something to think about. The idea is not uncontroversial, but if a number of conditions are met, it can work. You can use different approaches. There should be only one thing - an indifferent look at the disappearance of Russian villages from the map of the country. Perhaps our descendants may not forgive us for this. In the pictures: there is still hope for dying villages - for people who are ready to revive them. One of the most striking examples in the Rzhevsky district is the Kolembet couple, restoring the Chertolino estate (in the second photo). P.S. We invite concerned readers to also speak out on the stated topic.
Can ordinary citizens solve problems that the state cannot cope with - for example, bring life back to a dying village? Entrepreneur Oleg Zharov it was successful, and he is confident that half the country can be raised this way.
This year, Yaroslavl economist and businessman Zharov was awarded the State Prize in the field of art for the revival of the village of Vyatskoye. Once the richest, 5 years ago it was practically in ruins. Zharov settled here with his family, began buying destroyed merchant houses, restoring them and selling them. He installed sewerage and water supply, opened a hotel, a restaurant, and 7 museums. Tourists are now brought here by bus.
Millionaire collective farmer
“AiF”: - Oleg Alekseevich, you opened a museum of entrepreneurship in Vyatskoye. Do you think this quality has degenerated in our people and it’s time to demonstrate it as a curiosity?
O.Zh.:- No, it’s too early to take entrepreneurship to the museum. Everything that still works in Russia today is based precisely on entrepreneurship. Before the revolution, the residents of Vyatka were so successful in this capacity that they fed the whole of Russia with pickles, sold them abroad, and delivered them to the imperial court. The village was famous far beyond its borders - for its tinsmiths, roofers, masons, and plasterers. Vyatskoye was built up with stone two-story houses. And in Soviet times, the locals lived well - they worked on a millionaire collective farm. But I always say this: here there was not a millionaire collective farm, but millionaire collective farmers. Each family earned enough money to buy a car over the summer using cucumbers from their garden. It is known that one of the residents kept a million rubles in a savings book.
“AiF”: - What happened then? Where did that business acumen go?
O.Zh.:- Over the past 20 years, there has been some kind of change in consciousness... I think this is a general degradation of all foundations, primarily psychological. People received wages on the collective farm, and in their free time they farmed cucumbers. And when it turned out that they were no longer paying salaries and they had to take responsibility for their well-being, many broke down. But an entrepreneur is someone who bears full responsibility for the business, for those who work with it, for their families. We need to awaken people to self-awareness and shout about it.
“AiF”: - So you moved here and immediately invited the villagers to a community cleanup. But they didn't come. Have you managed to reach them since then?
O.Zh.:- People are still gradually changing - primarily from a psychological point of view. It’s very nice when people come to ask for advice, for example, what color to paint the roof. After all, when I arrived here, the fences were crooked, the grass was not mowed - they didn’t even think about it. Garbage was thrown into the street and is now carried into containers. Yards are cleaned, architraves are restored, flowers are placed in front of the gates.
“AiF”: - So, in order for people to change, they first had to install sewerage and give them work?
O.Zh.:- They had to be given hope - that not everything is so bad, that they are coming better times. Understand that until now their whole life was on TV. So they turned it on and, like a TV series, watched how they lived somewhere in Moscow or abroad. And they didn’t think that all this could happen in their village. Yes, at first they perceived me as an eccentric and an outsider. But when they saw that a tourist flow was coming to Vyatskoye, they believed in their prospects, in their future. People have a feeling of belonging to a big life. And many actually got jobs: there are 80 employees in the tourist complex, 50 of them are local.
“AiF”: - But now they often say that Russians don’t want to work, they become drunkards, so our economy cannot do without visitors. Do you agree?
O.Zh.:- On the one hand, we employ local guys 18-25 years old, they don’t drink, they’re always on the move, I’m pleased with them. On the other hand, we, of course, have lost qualified personnel. Those craftsman traditions that I spoke about have not been preserved in Vyatskoye. There is one elderly carpenter, one blacksmith. Unfortunately, these professions are completely out of fashion. Everyone strives to become programmers, lawyers, and economists. But I would like to tell young people that today the most promising and highly paid professions are blue-collar workers. The stove maker's assistant, whom we invite from the city, receives 100,000 rubles a month! Can you imagine? And this master is still ready to hire people, but cannot find them - this work is not considered prestigious.
About 100 people, let’s say, of Slavic origin passed through my hands here. Of these, about 10 people remained at work. And the same number of Uzbeks and Tajiks passed through - only 10% of them dropped out. They say that it is profitable for businessmen to do business with visitors, because they can be paid less. But that's not the point! They are trainable, hardworking, respectful, and don’t drink. Of course, they all work for me legally. If someone behaves aggressively, we break up immediately.
Rich inheritance
“AiF”: - I would like to read you a letter that was sent to “AiF” by the head of a village council. He advocates the restoration of collective farms. He writes that in villages it is now possible to make films about war without scenery: the impression is that battles were fought there using artillery. You found the same picture in Vyatskoye, but you managed to restore normal life here without the help of the state.
O.Zh.:- I am against this position: the state will come and fix everything. It won't improve anything! It has already shown its inconsistency. The state form of government is a thing of the past. I believe in people, in self-organization. I am convinced that private business and farmers will come to the village and put everything in its place. It just takes time, and not that long. My hope for changing Russia lies primarily in entrepreneurship.
“AiF”: - But we have more and more millionaires every year, but what’s the point? They only take money out of the country.
O.Zh.:- You are not right. We have many billionaires, but, unfortunately, there are much fewer millionaires. Entrepreneurs are different. If a middle class is formed, if small businesses are given space, the situation will change.
“AiF”: - You single-handedly coped with one of our main problems - the collapse of the housing and communal services sector. They took over and installed a sewer system in Vyatskoye. And you don’t take money from residents for it.
O.Zh.:- I don’t take it, because I think: I’d rather lose on the penny fees, but I’ll create a comfortable infrastructure for life and business. In general, the housing and communal services problem can be solved. Today, tariffs are set every year. And the head of the utility company is not interested in modernization. He employs, say, 100 people, but he understands that only 20 are needed. As soon as he fires the extra 80, the wage fund will be reduced and the tariff will be reduced by the same amount. There is no benefit for him, but this way he will at least save 80 people’s jobs. If the tariff is set once every 5 years, he will be able to fire extra people and spend the freed money on pipes.
“AiF”: - He’ll rather put them in his pocket.
O.Zh.:- That's what officials do. But a businessman is interested in cutting costs and ensuring that everything in the enterprise works - that’s the modernization of housing and communal services.
“AiF”: - Do you think other villages can be revived, like Vyatskoye?
O.Zh.:- I am an economist and I set a specific goal - to create mechanisms for the socio-economic development of territories based on the revival of cultural and historical heritage. Without oil, without gas, without gigantic investments in industrial infrastructure. I proved that a historical and cultural complex can very well be a profitable business. In other words, the revival of cultural heritage is financially viable. There are many small towns in our country, they all have a historical heritage. There are 53 architectural monuments in Vyatskoye alone!
Half the country could be raised in this way. This doesn’t require that much money, and this is where the state can take part - in the development of infrastructure, in the construction of roads. But the most important thing is to mobilize the creative potential of the people. It exists, it cannot be destroyed, it cannot be eradicated.
In the village of Mashkino, Torzhok district, there live eccentrics.
They are reshaping the local landscape according to the method of some Austrian, cultivating ridges, riding horses and weaving clothes.
They left the big cities to lift the spirits of the Russians and revive the village.
We expected to see anything in Mashkino - Old Believers, fanatics, Slavic Nazis.
But not what they saw.
The road to Mashkino is full of potholes and winds like a labyrinth in the magazine “Murzilka”.
At the most dangerous fork, a stocky old man in a sheepskin coat and earflaps appears out of the ground and shows the way:
- Straight ahead is a big puddle, and to the right is Mashkino.
You can only drive around the village with an SUV, but even its large wheels get stuck in the mud. Our goal - White House at the end of the village, covered with siding. This is where “Ataman Beloyar” lives.
This valuable information was gleaned from a local resident Yaroslav, recorded on VKontakte as “Uncle Vedun”. He explained how to get to Mashkin and told one of the main local rules:
- Be sure to take off your shoes at home.
Mashkino is a hilly village. There are beds laid out on its steep slopes, and the glass of greenhouses glistens in the sun. Below, under the hill, a tractor hums. A long narrow ditch has been dug along the village. The white chieftain's house is surrounded by yellow houses that look like large beehives.
Knocking on the door:
- Does Beloyar live here?
- Here. But you have to wait.
A curly-haired man with a bushy beard and bright blue eyes looks mockingly and goes into the yard to connect the gas cylinder.
“The boss must not only indicate, but also work himself,” he says, unscrewing the valve.
There is a stroller in the courtyard of the house. There, under a canopy, sleeps the baby Maria, the fourth daughter of Beloyar’s seven children. At first the chieftain is taciturn. He only reports that “in the world” his name is Sergei Vasilyevich Kaidash, and Beloyar is a name for his own people. He is a former banker, current vice-rector of Chelyabinsk state university, Cossack foreman.
“I’ll tell you everything in order,” he tells us, burning with curiosity. - In the meantime, let’s go drink some tea.
And we rush to the neighboring hut to congratulate local resident Natalya on her birthday. Along the way, we learn that 17 adults and 20 children now live in Mashkin. All the children are in family education: they are assigned to a school in Bolshoy Vyshenye, and here Irina, a teacher at Moscow State University, teaches them.
“But Irina is not a teacher,” Beloyar clarifies. - She's a tutor. It just helps you learn. Our task is to create an educational environment for children.
A thin boy with an ax runs out to the threshold of the hut. He has curls and cornflower blue eyes, like Beloyar. This is his son Grisha, ten years old.
“By my arrival, you will chop the wood that you can,” the chieftain lovingly orders.
Grisha nods willingly and disappears around the corner.
In his place, a migrant worker with a sallow face suddenly appears and asks Beloyar where to dig.
“This is a Turkmen, we call him Andrey,” the ataman later enlightens. - He has a nickname “small excavator”: he plows from a to z. Have you seen a ditch in the village? He dug this with a shovel to lay the winter water supply. Andrey's fourth child is about to be born.
- How did he get here?
- I have a comrade Azir in Torzhok. I asked him to find a non-drinking family who could live and work in Mashkino. And he found Andrey.
- Is it necessary that you don’t drink?
“Yes,” Beloyar snaps. - We have a strict dry law, and smoking is prohibited. Two have already left. One drank, the other smoked.
This is how we learn Mashkin’s second rule and, having temporarily swallowed all the questions, we finally cross the threshold of the hut.
In the hut long table laden with pies. It is noisy, cozy and there are a lot of people: men, women, children. Everyone has kind faces and wool socks on their feet.
Actually, this place is a school. Here, opposite the stove, there is a computer. A map of the Tver region hangs on the wall, and there are jars of pencils on the windowsills. The woman in a beige suede sundress is tutor Irina, professor of biology at Moscow State University.
The bearded guy Yura with a balalaika is a professional performer of a bard song. Here is a barefoot man, by the way, with a birch bark strip around his forehead. Blonde birthday girl Natalya in a toe-length sundress with patterns - she sewed it herself. Children are running around the room - all of them are pretty, looking like angels. Many run up to Beloyar, hug and kiss him.
We are seated on the sofa, served with pie and tea with lemon balm and oregano. Only then Ataman Beloyar, aka Sergei Vasilyevich Kaidash, begins a story, as amazing as everything around:
- I am a hereditary Cossack, I grew up in Kazakhstan. With three higher education degrees, I am an engineer, an agricultural specialist, and a financier. Since 1989 - businessman. Vice-Rector of ChelSU, now I represent the interests of this university in federal authorities. And a bit of a doctor of economics.
- Are you kidding?
- Why? I just don’t like to talk about it, but I defended my doctoral dissertation. The idea of rural life arose a long time ago. Back in the Urals, we were developing a project for resettling Cossacks in villages. But then the crisis got in the way.
- Why exactly Mashkino?
- We looked for a place based on all features: energy, aura, local population... We traveled all over the Ivanovo, Kaluga, and Tula regions. And they found Mashkino. Firstly, there is a dead end here: if someone came, it means they came to us. Secondly, this is a unique place between St. Petersburg and Moscow, the foothills of Valdai, an altitude of 345 meters above sea level. There is beautiful landscape and enough land to plan globally. The spirit is good here.
Ataman Beloyar speaks energetically and assertively. Every word he says weighs a pound. He seems to know the answers to all everyday and philosophical questions. He explains with dignity whose land this is, whose houses these are and what fate awaits Mashkino.
- We recently saved the local collective farm “Lenin’s Path” from bankruptcy, and now I am officially its chairman. We took ownership of what was left of the collective farm property: a stable, for example. Now de jure all this land is ours. But we don’t want to be known as Varangians. We are not buying land, but continuity. Therefore, it was important for us to live in peace with the locals.
- How were you received here?
- Two years ago, when we arrived in Mashkino, two families lived here... Everything was looted and destroyed. And here we are. We immediately said: either we have love until the grave, or war until death. It's still the middle. In the summer, summer residents come to Mashkino who like to drink and take a walk. And we... mmm... correct their behavior.
Sergei Kaidash talks about hooligan summer residents, and I think: what, in fact, is bad about the Varangians? In the end, their arrival in Rus' was quite natural. I look at Kaidash with respect: he introduces himself to me as Rurik.
Ataman Beloyar does not like unnecessary questions. He immediately dots all the i’s: they didn’t just come to live and plant a garden. They have global tasks - such as the revival of the Russian village.
A village is not just a territory. It must be extremely developed. We want to prove that you can live and work in the countryside.
Similar ideas are popular in Lately. And the Tver region is a tasty morsel for downshifters. But so far no significant changes are visible, and Tver villages are quietly fading away.
Sergei Kaidash does not look like a fanatic. His concept of ideal rural life is thought out to the smallest detail:
- Main aspect village life“education,” Sergei Vasilyevich says smoothly, as if at a minister’s reception. - There is a school - there is a village, and vice versa. I have been working at a university for many years. One day my colleagues and I realized: a good applicant must be raised with primary school. We combined several advanced programs into one and formed 100 experimental primary classes to modernize education at least within the region. And the results were stunning. Now I am implementing such programs at the federal level. For me, education is not about teachers. This is the environment that surrounds the child.
Sergei Kaidash brought his children (and there are seven of them!) to Mashkino because there is a good environment here. Now their lessons take place outdoors: in the forest, fields and meadows. While learning about nature: bugs, spiders, wind, rain, the children study chemistry, physics, and biology. Therefore, their knowledge is purely practical.
Adults here also actively listen to nature. They develop the land and reshape the local landscape using the technology of the Austrian Sepp Holzer, the famous revolutionary agrarian and permaculture advocate.
Holzer's philosophy is to understand nature, not fight it, explains Kaidash. - All parts landscape design you need to place it “wisely”: ridges - so that they catch the sun, next to the field - a ravine so that the water drains. Everything must be in harmony.
Holzer calls it “permaculture”, and we call it “forest garden” and “meadow garden”. We like these words better.
Last year, a famous farmer came to Mashkino to give lectures. A white house was built especially for him, in which Sergei Kaidash and his family now live. Cossack agrees with another point of Holzer: on the ground you need to work with your hands.
- Industrialization Agriculture leads to its disappearance. If we now drive combine harvesters here and build large livestock complexes, Mashkino will perish. Because there will be one button and two people. What should the rest of the hundred do? The village should give people jobs.
- How to get people to work in the village? Moreover, pampered city dwellers?
“Forcing them to come to the village and just plow is unrealistic,” Kaidash reflects. - Our main goal is to teach people to live on earth without fear. The one who runs from himself will not stop here. And the one who came to live will live.
People of different beliefs live in Mashkino: Orthodox, Old Believers, Muslims, atheists...
However, at a general village meeting, residents decided to form a Cossack farm in Mashkino.
Not all of them are Cossacks here. But from the 11 farms that are formally ours now, we will build a village. My social task is the development of the Cossacks. Not as an ethnic group, but as a spirit. Like the Russians: let’s return spirituality to our homeland - it will perk up.
Spirit is the main thing, but not the only thing they cultivate. Ataman Beloyar does not have his head in the clouds, but stands firmly on the ground. His favorite saying: “We are without fanaticism.”
The project provides for the economic development of the village and the Torzhok region, so far mainly through tourism:
“We are developing eco-, agro-, ethno-tourism,” lists Vice-Rector Kaydash. Professor Irina sits on the arm of the sofa, smiles and nods in agreement. - “Agro” is our land. "Eco" is a merger with nature. And “ethno” is folklore. All three components can exist together in a village. Folklore is especially important. TV, computer - they only take energy. And folk art returns. Moreover, our task is not to export products from the village, but to attract consumers here.
In this matter, the “stanitsa residents” have achieved considerable success. For two years now, in Mashkino, in the summer, “ family holiday» for lovers of eco-agroethnotourism: three shifts of two weeks. Recently, vacationers created an enthusiastic group on VKontakte, “Mashkino Forever.” And with the money of tourists, Sergei Kaidash organized a free vacation in Mashkin for children whose fathers died in hot spots.
In summer, tourists live in “beehive houses” with four sleeping places. They work on the land, ride horses, eat and dance.
Horse riding and folklore festivals are held in Mashkino. Craftsmen work all summer: potters, carpenters, blacksmiths and other craftsmen. After a holiday in Mashkino, some decide to stay here forever. This happened, for example, with birthday girl Natalya, who moved here for permanent residence with her daughter this year.
And now a round dance is circling around her: the neighbors congratulate Natalya, jumping on the withered grass and singing at the top of their voices:
Let the soul be like a bird
Spreads its wings
With my love
Covers the earth.
We go on a tour of the village. The first point is a stable where a dozen horses live. They are as beautiful and joyful as people - except without the downy socks. Many residents, including 13-year-old Daria, the chieftain’s daughter, are professional horseback riding. There is already a real arena for show jumping. The plans are to make a hippodrome and hold horse races.
Behind the stables is a farm where two cows, goats and chickens live.
From the hill there is a view of the new Mashkino, almost rebuilt using Sepp Helzer’s “smart” technology. The pond is three meters deep. The excavator is digging another pond: they will be arranged in a cascade.
- There will be gardens. And here we made a drainage channel so that the fields would not flood in the spring. And the ridges are broken where they are caught Sun rays, - the ataman explains sensibly. - We connected three streams underground - and now a spring flows here.
And he leads us beyond the field to show some strange hills, where in the summer currants and raspberries grow up to two meters high.
The landing force that landed on Torzhok soil and developed vigorous activity here, of course, attracted the attention of local authorities. A stream of “inspectors” of all levels reached Mashkino: a prosecutor, a veterinarian, four police majors, the SES, Rospotrebnadzor, guardianship authorities... The UBEP charged them with illegal entrepreneurship.
But no one found anything to complain about:
“The prosecutor’s office tried to initiate at least some kind of criminal case,” recalls Sergei Kaidash. - But we cannot be convicted, so we try to live according to our conscience. Our greatest security is complete transparency. The inspectors come, and we give them tea, we don’t whisper in their ears, we don’t give them bribes...
Beloyar again repeats the main commandment: they come in peace. And the second postulate: for the village to live, it is necessary to competently shape the environment. Daria gallops past on a bareback horse. The younger girls, seeing her, squeal with delight.
“This is the right environment: when the elders are an example for the younger ones,” Kaidash says.
Walking through the village: summer trefectory, kitchen, pantry. The winter refectory is wrapped in a blue and red United Russia banner, with the letters “Shevel...” read. Now the floor is broken because in the summer they “danced until the morning.” This is the ideological chopping block of the village: on the wall hangs the settlement’s charter and other commandments by which people live in Mashkino. The most important of them: “Without love, everything is nothing.”
Suddenly a bearded head appears from the underground... We shudder.
- Vanka, is that you? - the chieftain calls out.
Good fellow Ivan, with whom we had tea an hour ago, is now repairing the floor in the refectory and carrying bricks. Daily work is the norm here for adults and children. Moreover, this is joy, not torment. “The greatest crime was committed by the one who began to punish with labor,” comments Beloyar.
We leisurely look around the workshops. In the carpentry workshop - wood shavings, in the pottery - kiln, large and small Potter's wheel and pots. One of these days, a seamstress girl is coming to Mashkino for permanent residence and will also work here. These workshops are the forerunner of production, when the village will earn money itself.
The last exhibit is a bathhouse where tourists wash their clothes in the summer.
- Do you also wash in basins? - I look at Beloyar.
- What do you! - Kaidash mutters. - We have washing machine. I say: without fanaticism.
- So who are you anyway? - at the end of the conversation the question that was asked first arises. - Are you a community?
“Community is a sacred word for me,” the ataman snaps. - It cannot be created artificially. To become a community, people need to eat a ton of salt. We are a hostel for people who want to live and work on the land. There is a saying: a fish rots from the head. But revival begins with leaders. Nowadays a lot of people come to us. I talk to them the same way as I do with you and offer them: live. And then how it turns out. If a person comes in peace, we will accept him.
What is happening in this village has five names: village, hostel, eco-village, project...
But in my thoughts I simply call it Mashkino - as a phenomenon that has not yet existed on Tver soil, and perhaps even in Russia.
And I want to believe that it is forever.
- Father Kirill, do you have village roots?
- I was born in the mining village of Artyomovsk in the Donbass. My father is a native of the village of Perezdnoye, Voronezh region, and my mother is from the village of Staroye Melovoe, Belgorod region. As a child, I often visited these villages, especially Perezdny.
In the Pavlovsky district, where Pereezdnoye is located, there were two functioning churches, but many churches were destroyed after the revolution. In the village of Rassypnoye, neighboring Pereezdny, I saw many bullet marks on the dome of the bell tower. One day, a priest from there came to Perezdnoye to bless Easter cakes and eggs on Holy Saturday, and drunken men locked him in a barn, where he sat all night. The Easter service was disrupted... Several decades after the mass closure of churches in these places, the servant of God Theodore, Fedor Kipriyanovich, baptized children and performed funeral services for the dead. I was told that he was a fearless man who suffered a lot for his faith. It used to be that after the next christening, the local authorities would scold him, take him to a field away from the village, and the next morning he would pray for the deceased in another village. I never lost heart.
- When did you begin to take care of villages as a priest?
- Since the summer of 1991, then I decided to come to Pereezdnoye to prayerfully remember my grandmother - my father’s mother - on the day of the 20th anniversary of her death.
- How did you see the village then?
- I remember the conversation with the milkmaid. She complained about the extremely low cost of milk; this completely devalued her work. Then resellers appeared in the village, buying animals for pennies. Refugees from the republics flocked former Union. Theft began to flourish.
I talked to many leaders. They said about the same thing: high fuel prices make peasant labor meaningless, young people are leaving the village, people are drinking themselves to death. The head of the farm in the village of Leskovo - I consecrated his house and the building where the board was located there - told how not long before he fired milkmaids - for drunkenness (!). Last news from there they were disappointing: the farm in Leskovo completely collapsed, all the livestock in Perezdnoye was slaughtered.
- Is there really nothing that can be done to stop this evil?
- The same leader said: everyone knows in which houses in the village they distill moonshine or sell low-quality alcohol. And the police are inactive - the inviolability of a private home! Drugs have appeared in the village... After the disco near the club, syringes are lying on the ground. I am absolutely sure that people are being deliberately soldered. The mortality rate is horrifying.
- Why did you install several worship crosses in rural areas, what do you see as the meaning of their appearance in these places?
- Worship crosses in villages have become the center of spiritual life. In total, we installed twelve such crosses in the Voronezh region. They organized small communities and provided people with liturgical books. Thus, by gathering at the crosses on Sundays and holidays, the residents of these villages will not be cut off from the common congregational prayer of our people.
- Have you also been involved in the restoration of rural churches?
- More precisely, they gave impetus to their revival. They came to some village where the temple lay in ruins, hung bells on a tree, and began to ring. At first people did not understand anything, then they gathered to church. A prayer service was served, then a sermon, and a common meal. Then we invite everyone to a labor hour. There were real miracles. After our appearance in the village of Eryshevka, a month and a half later I received a letter. Local residents report that they have already covered the roof, laid the floors, installed windows and even planted flower beds around the church.
- What are you going to do next?
- I remember how in the village of Seryakovo the first service was performed on the throne day for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and people asked us: “When will you open the temple for us?” And we say: “We have already opened this service.” They: “What’s next?” - “And then for several days we will spend here general cleaning and build an iconostasis. You come here every Saturday and Sunday and, after praying, reading the prayers according to the rules, wipe the window sill, put a jar of flowers, and then do the same with the next window sill. That is, we are confident that thanks to regular prayer, people will begin to be drawn to the temple. It happens often. Obviously, we need to start not with drawing up huge estimates, but with prayer. Prayer works wonders.
- Where do you work now?
- In the Tver region. Here the community has several houses. We have installed a dozen worship crosses, we are digging through the ruins of several temples in endangered villages. Here the situation is even worse. The magazine "Russian House" wrote that every year about 40 villages disappear from the map of the Tver region. One disappeared before our eyes - Raiki in the Likhoslavsky district. One can still understand the temporary suspension of the emergence of new settlements, but when those where people have lived for centuries disappear, it’s terrible! main reason degradation and extinction - horrific drunkenness and unemployment. There are a lot of abandoned villages. This winter many southerners came. Land shares are being bought for next to nothing. On paper, there are more than one and a half hundred farmers in the region, but in reality there are three people, but everyone received subsidies and benefits.
Drunkenness is rampant. A local resident, a 50-year-old man, said that half of his classmates had already died from burnt vodka. I say: “Well, wait here for a couple of thousand Chinese who will populate your land.” “Oh, don’t,” he objects. “Then why do you become an alcoholic and not have children?” I ask him. But the answer is obvious: out of despair.
- What to do? You painted everything so dark...
- It’s difficult to give comprehensive recommendations. But... we must finally begin systematic work to limit drunkenness; do not choke the remaining rural Mohicans with taxes, but subsidize them only for the fact that they still live on the earth. Look what happens: from one endangered village to another there are several tens of kilometers. The village is our rear, a reserve, in view of the inevitable future cataclysms. We wrote off Mongolia's debt of $6 billion, Iraq's $23 billion, and we are allocating $1 billion for a national agricultural development project. Absurd!
The energy supply controller talked about how grandmothers in villages, who suffered hardships in the war, worked on collective farms for several decades, receive a pension of 1800 rubles, and they are also forced to purchase new meters for 600 rubles!
The village needs serious material support. It is urgent to carry out emergency work in collapsing rural churches, rural schools, post offices, and libraries. If they don’t exist, the village will die out by leaps and bounds. Targeted financial assistance is needed. It is important to unite people. I believe in the power of the influence of Orthodox village communities, in the fact that they are able to heal any festering wounds...
Interviewed by Vladimir Aleksandrovich FROLOV
http://www.russdom.ru/2007/200712i/20071233.shtml
Shakhun farmer Viktor Kozhin is from that rare class who, having once chosen their destiny, remains faithful to it forever. He started in the 90s, when there was a special fashion for farming, but unlike many who were later unable to cope with this business, Victor did not get lost, did not leave the “distance”. On the other hand, he, a farmer of the “first wave,” had been badly battered over the years; he had to go through a lot in order to achieve the goals that he constantly set for himself.
His biography is not rich in external events: after school he entered the Vetluzhsky Agricultural Technical School, worked as a mechanic on a state farm in the village of Bolshoye Shirokoe. At one time he went to Siberia, but returned 4 years later. Unfortunately, farming at his home also did not start out very well. The land then was allocated to him, as usual, not the best and far away. A young farmer struggled with it for several years, but to no avail. The only thing he achieved then was a good reputation among his fellow villagers, who could not help but see the farmer’s diligence and hard work. Therefore, at one of the meetings, the young farmer was asked to head a state farm in Bolshoi Shirokoe. It was a desperate step - the farm, which suffered serious damage during perestroika, could not be saved from bankruptcy.
For some time, Kozhin was engaged in commerce, although not on the “buy and sell” principle. He grew grain, ground flour, baked excellent bread in his bakery and traded in the surrounding villages, kept a store in the regional center, and a roadside cafe on a busy highway. It seemed that little by little the farmer's life was returning to normal.
“Back then we fed almost half the district with our bread,” recalls Victor. — Our loaves and rolls were in great demand among customers. I tried it myself in a bakery: you’ll eat half a loaf and you won’t even notice. In addition, we kept our prices lower to attract more people. This did not please the competitors, and among them there were very wealthy people, behind whom, as it turned out, some of the district officials were hiding. In a word, I crossed the path of these people. I was then choking from various checks, but it all ended the way it should have ended - under various pretexts they closed my store and cafe, cut the wires in the bakery...
There was another interesting point - farmer Kozhin headed a credit cooperative in Shakhunya, but left: it seemed “boring”; his active nature demanded a living, real business.
Here is the time to pause to talk in detail about the farmhouse in which Victor celebrated his housewarming a year ago. In fact, Kozhin was obsessed with the idea from the very beginning - to revive his native village of Evtino, which in the 70s had a sad fate - it fell into the “unpromising”, the residents from here were resettled in Bolshoye Shirokoe on the central state farm estate. Victor had it here good flat, together with his wife Tatyana they raised 3 daughters.
“According to the stories of my parents, there was a strong collective farm in Evtino in the pre-war years,” says Kozhin. — The houses made up two street orders - about 50 houses in total. Our family house, which was built by our grandfather, survived for a long time after the resettlement - it recently had to be dismantled for firewood. Since I subsequently had to give up the worthless land, in return I managed to get almost 160 hectares around Evtino, which is what I wanted from the very beginning. True, the arable land was very overgrown by that time, and the dense forest had to be uprooted. It took almost 2 years until the arable land returned to production.
Victor placed his new house in his native Evtino opposite an old spreading poplar tree, which was the only one left from the Kozhins’ former estate. But under its thick canopy a young garden is now humming, planted by a farmer in memory of his distant ancestors. Cherries, apple trees, pears - as if there had been no recent hard times in the revived village of Evtino.
A farmer built a new mansion to the ridicule of his fellow villagers. Is it time for one person to revive a village? And although the full implementation of this daring, if not fantastic, undertaking is still far away, Victor stubbornly continues the work he has started. The fact that the former arable land has been returned to circulation is already a big deal. Even before the construction of his mansion began, Victor built a two-apartment house nearby where his employees live. There are birch groves all around, which are painted gold by autumn. From somewhere in the distance, a river with densely overgrown banks slowly makes its loops. You can endlessly admire such “Polenovsky” views around.
Together with Victor, we took a “tour” of his house - it is on three levels, with a total area of 200 square meters. m. Although there are no special delights in the house, everything was done by the owner soundly and tastefully. Downstairs there is a utility block with a bathroom and toilet, there is spacious storage for various pickles - jams, potatoes and vegetables, harvested from the extensive garden in front of the house. On the second floor there is a living room and a kitchen, and when the whole family gathers here in the evenings, you can immediately see how friendly and welcoming the people are.
By the way, the Kozhins can be happy with their daughters: Katya is studying to become an economist in Nizhny Novgorod, Masha is receiving the same specialty by correspondence, and works in Shakhunya. Parents hope that after graduation their eldest daughters will become good helpers in the household. And the youngest Vika goes to school. Everyone has their own room, a separate office for the head of the family (there is an indispensable computer), modern furniture. Although the house has electric heating, the traditional peasant stove has not been forgotten. The owners are planning to build a new bathhouse in the yard over the winter.
Kozhin built the house using a “combined” method - a zero cycle and built the first floor with his own funds, and when the money, as they say, “ran out of steam,” construction did not stop. He helped out with a housing certificate for 400 thousand rubles, which he received within the framework of the current federal program “ Social development village until 2010.” But even this money was not enough; he had to go into debt, which the farmer is still paying off.
Evtino is not located in the middle of nowhere, just half a kilometer away there is a republican highway, along it from the farmer to the regional center of Shakhunya it is only half an hour’s drive, there is a convenient bus service. It is difficult to say whether new residents will come here over time, but Kozhin is committed to his dream of reviving his small homeland.
He considers the construction of the house to be an “intermediate moment” in his many years of efforts to renovate Evtino. Now he has undertaken to develop his production here. No matter how difficult last summer turned out to be, in his field Victor managed to take 15 quintals of grain all around. Back in the spring, he bought 40 head of young animals, which he is now fattening. And this is the curious turn this matter takes - among the young animals there were several heifers, which the Kozhins decided to keep for themselves. This step is prompted by the current situation on the milk market - prices for it are very attractive, and considerable additional income can be obtained from the sale of milk.
“You can’t live in the countryside for one day, you have to constantly grasp the “perspective”,” the farmer explains his current plans.
But perhaps the most ambitious construction project (after the mansion) is the new pig farm that Kozhin has now started. Everything here is unusual - instead of traditional squat pigsties, 2 hangar-type buildings are installed. An awning made of a special material is stretched over the metal structures. Everything is easy, simple and fast. I will keep the pigs according to Canadian technology, feeding is dry. The concentrates are poured into special containers with slits at the bottom, the animals eat the food, and new portions come from above. Labor costs for caring for animals are minimal. The farm is designed for 400 animals; only 3 people will serve them.
At first, the situation with the new farm was quite difficult. The farmer planned to have sows here to produce piglets for fattening. However, Kozhin’s collateral was not enough for the full loan amount. True, a familiar businessman from Shakhunya, A. Meshkov, came to the rescue and helped arrange a third party’s pledge. Although the loan amount dropped from 8 million rubles to 3 million, the farmer is happy - he successfully started construction.
By the way, a bank loan for a period of 8 years with a deferred payment of the principal payment for 3 years. Now the farmer pays 35 thousand rubles in interest monthly. 29 thousand rubles are returned to him in the form of a subsidy. - the loan is very cheap, almost free - at only 4% per annum.
The noticeable reduction in the size of the loan did not at all dampen Kozhin’s ardor - given the current circumstances, he intends in the future to engage only in fattening pigs, and for this he will begin to buy piglets on the side.
The three-million dollar loan that is described here is not the first that Kozhin has taken out today. In the spring, he received a preferential loan of 700 thousand rubles from Rosselkhozbank, which was used for sowing. It must be paid by May next year. And the young animals that are being fattened on the farm will help do this.
All summer, Victor mowed green grass in the meadows; his wife Tatyana can now barely manage the huge cast iron in the kitchen in the yard - preparing grain porridge for the bulls and heifers. They keep a cow in the farmyard that milks a bucket of milk a day. It is enough for food, and the excess goes to feed the calves, who are gaining weight before our eyes. A yard was built nearby for them - spacious and comfortable. A whole stack of hay has been prepared, and there is a supply of grain in the warehouse. By the way, some of it went on sale - the price for it was not bad, so additional income in a large farm would not hurt.
Victor aptly calls his current youngsters a “savings book” - this is simply future money for repaying loans.
And now is the time to say what kind of selective affection the farmer enjoys from Rosselkhozbank, from which a year ago an additional office was opened in the neighboring Tonshaevsky district.
“Whenever I contact the head of the additional office, Galina Vasilyevna Lapteva, she will always listen carefully and try to help,” says Kozhin. “This fall my loan was delayed, and the builders with whom I had an agreement had to finish the foundations on the farm before the cold weather. The deadlines were running out, so I turned to Lapteva. She specially went to the regional branch of Rosselkhozbank to resolve my issue.
This story has a strange, at first glance, continuation. A few months ago, an additional office of this bank appeared in the Shakhunsky district, it would seem that it would be much more convenient to travel to your regional center for financial matters. But Kozhin decided to stay in the previous additional office, to which, as he says, he “stuck” from the very beginning...
It would be naive to think that now everything is going smoothly in the farming affairs of this restless man. However, difficulties sometimes lie in wait for him where they are least expected. Taking into account the “wind rose”, the place for the new pig farm was chosen ideally - across the river, on open field(a “smelly” farm won’t bother anyone here). In dry summers you can cross the local river, but in the fall it rained, and equipment is now drowning while crossing it. The builders had to drag a lot of materials to the site manually so that work would not stop. Whatever one may say, a road is required here, but the farmer does not have that kind of money. Therefore, he turned to the district authorities for help and hopes for the assistance of road workers.
And now we come to a topic that requires special delicacy when presented. We are talking about three workers who are engaged in farming. Unfortunately, nothing good can be said about the past of these people. All of them were affected by a terrible disease - drunkenness. It is better not to remember the extent of their decline now.
Farmer Kozhin took a big risk when he took them to his work. Some were treated, but others are still unreliable and have breakdowns. And this is far from trivial in a large, well-functioning farm. To put it briefly, due to the “lame” discipline of people, Victor had to hire an additional combine during the last harvest to literally save the harvest in bad weather. While the owner does not hand over wages to his employees, they are fully provided for by him - Victor buys them clothes, food, and provides them with free, comfortable housing.
With the launch of the farm, people will be needed here. Victor spotted an old, long-abandoned house on the edge of Evtino, which he plans to move closer and renovate. You can settle a whole family here - good workers are especially needed on the farm.
“All autumn, the grain lay in my warehouse uncleaned,” Kozhin complains. — It’s raining, and the roof is leaking in several places. During this hot time, one of the workers “fell into gaiety.” When he sobered up, he persuaded me to hire him again, but warned him that this would be the last time...
As long as the owner does not go to extreme measures, he gives his people who are in serious everyday trouble another chance to return to normal life, and hopes to break their addiction to alcohol. If there are even small positive changes here (this has also been observed), Viktor Kozhin is sincerely happy; in any case, he believes that the normal work and good living conditions that he is trying to provide for these people will help them over time get out of their moral impasse. Although he jokingly adds that he is an incorrigible optimist.
